


After Me, The Deluge

by bobaheadshark



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Feels, F/M, Nature, Post-Canon, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:54:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25067215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobaheadshark/pseuds/bobaheadshark
Summary: On this structure, this long-dead starship, there are no ghouls. Just memories, an imprint of those who once traversed the now-silent halls.----Rey finds Ben's saber on Kef Bir. A short ficlet inspired by amazing art fromReyReyButt.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 24
Kudos: 81
Collections: Reylo Hidden Gems





	After Me, The Deluge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ReyreyButt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReyreyButt/gifts).



> Thanks also to Lepak for the quick lookover <3

* * *

There was a saying on Jakku. That a steelpecker remains mute its whole life, tearing at the insides of old starships, until near the end – when it cries at a singular frequency, which only its flock can hear. 

It’s an idea that Rey never believed in. But standing on the hulking warship on Kef-Bir, with the remains of Ben’s saber laid at her feet, she begins to understand.

It happened almost by accident. After Exegol, after the dissolution of the Order, after setting up a new base – _no, home_ – on Takodana; there were mouths to feed, starlines to map, rebuilding to be done. 

It happens when she is poring over runes in the sand and pointing out jungle creatures to Finn and their students. She’d learned to disassociate from the emptiness. Her emotions, previously fast to overboil, are now much more measured. She’s filled her days with studies and people and chatter, moving ever forward so as not to get trapped in the quicksand of memory. Yet in the recesses of her mind, there is a canvas – rid of stars, black as night; the place that used to house the other half of her soul, now vacant. 

Until she feels the call of it: in a way she can only compare to Wintrium liquid when it flows, sharp and crystalline through the pinch of an hourglass. 

Finn’s smile is kind and understanding when she tells him she has to go away for a little while. His reassurance is genuine, when he tells her that it’s alright. 

The day after the fourth anniversary of his death, she puts her hand on the console of the Falcon and charts a course back to the Death Star. She doesn’t stop to think why or how. 

So she is here. Not in Jedi robes, because she is no Knight, and the albatross of “war hero” is not one she wishes to wear on her chest. Instead, when she was halfway past the Rattatak system, she found the old shirt. It’s tucked into a dusty corner of the Falcon with other remnants of the war she can’t bring herself to clean out: her oldest pair of boots from a faraway desert planet, a pressed Broadleaf from Ajan Kloss, a coaster from an especially good night at Maz’s cantina that brings a smile to her face on a cloudy day. Memories of a life that feel hard-earned, but slowly more whole. 

She is back on Kef Bir. The sea roars around her, but unlike the last time, she’s not afraid. There is no adrenalin. No slash of sabers in the air. No two people meeting in lightning and rainwater – her teeth don’t clatter. She doesn’t smell soot and leather and his bloodlust, doesn’t stand on that liminal edge of a terrifying knowledge, which is that he and she walked on the precipice of barely discernible difference, and had too little time to see it for what it really was: kinship. 

On this structure, this long-dead starship, there are no ghouls. Just memories, an imprint of those who once traversed the now-silent halls. 

The crystal. It calls to her. A low pulse in the quiet of dawn. 

At first she feels joy, but then it is anger. She feels the sorrow it carries, and an irretrievable feeling of loss. The Dark beckons, but she welcomes it now. Rippling out of her in waves that sends the structure she stands on into tremors, and ocean creatures scurrying beneath the waves. The sea hawks above cry out, and water that splashes in colossal sprays around her freeze in place. Suspended, as if nature itself recognises the depth of her grief.

She sees crimson, tastes iron on her tongue. 

_Something inside me has always been there. And now, it’s awake._

She remembers a different island. A greener cliff, a mentor in hiding. But she knows now that that young woman is not the same, that what she saw in the cave was the past and the future, because she walks with all of them in her. Jedi, friend, fighter. Soldier, sithspawn, survivor.

The dark doesn’t command, it asks. So she gives, in return. She thinks of the nameless children in the galaxy who need her, the institutions of power that corrupt and devour, the work that is ahead. But in darkness, she finds light: the joy of dreaming up new ships with Rose, Poe’s easy laughter, Jannah teaching her to swim on aimless summer days. Totems of a life she holds in her mind, until they anchor her back to the now.

She hears the kyber’s song, too. Sees a boy, clutching desperately at his mother’s skirts. Sullenness, from a dark-haired Padawan ill at ease with friends. Anger, so much anger, that it takes her breath away. Darkness that clawed at a young man like a riptide, but in that same torrent, love – like a seaswell, certain and sure. 

The kyber glows. A succession of new images flash before her eyes, and she can’t make sense of them all yet. A portal, floating in dark ether. A hand, reaching through a door. A disused voice that whispers her name – a voice she can’t forget, even if she’s tried. 

Her breath catches in her throat. She doesn’t realise she’s crying until she looks down at the saber, and sees that it’s wet with her tears.

But as she wipes her face on her sleeve, she feels it. The thread, tugging at a nexus in her mind that she thought had long been closed. The thread she’s only realised in the years that have passed is the one that’s connected him to her all along. 

It stutters to life. Comes to her in bits and pieces. A transmission she will have to decrypt, later.

_Dyad. Two that are one._

_Vergence. The world between._

_I’m here, Rey. I’ll wait._

And then, so quietly, she almost doesn’t hear –

_You’re not alone._

The Force shimmers around her. She gasps, and it’s like surfacing for air. 

The bond. She knows it’s weak, and it will wink away soon. But her resolve is newly armoured, unbreakable. 

Because she doesn’t know what lies ahead, but she knows she will find him.

Water splashes on steel. The birds circle. A cycle begins anew. 

_I know. Neither are you._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Kudos, concrit, comments always welcome.
> 
> Some quick notes: The [Legend of the Swansong](https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/swan-song.html). What's a [Steelpecker](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Steelpecker)? [Broadleaf](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Broadleaf). And [Wintrium ](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Wintrium). Apparently, [Rattatak ](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Mid_Rim?file=Canon_galaxy_map.jpg) is between Takodana and Endor (Kef Bir is an Endor moon). [Vergence ](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Vergence).
> 
> You might also want to check out Kennedy's [alternate take](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25052209).
> 
> And say hi to me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/bobaheadshark)!


End file.
